For example, while some twentieth-century scholars have attempted to explain Aristotle's distinction between homonymy and amphiboly in terms of the contemporary distinction between semantics and syntax, [End Page 93] Aristotle seems to distinguish the two according to whether a general predicate signifies many particulars regardless of context, or in a propositional context (31).
For if we say that in the proposition 'Socrates is a man' the predicate signifies human nature absolutely, but the same nature, on account of its abstract character, is a species, the false conclusion seems inevitable (Klima 1993a).
The second can in turn be divided into two kinds: predications in which the predicate signifies the parts of a subject in relation to one another and those that do not.
On this view (also called 'filler-', 'realizer' or 'occupant-functionalism') a specification of the relevant role typically obtained by a logical construction (the so called "Ramsey sentence") from the theory containing a predicate that signifies this property merely serves as a description to pick out the property that plays the functional role in the actual world.
Thus, the maxim, 'Of whatever the species is predicated the genus is also predicated' signifies or contains the sentences 'If it is a man it is an animal', 'If it is a rock it is a substance', etc.
Expressions can be classified under various heads: predicates signify substances (e.g., "man" or "horse"), qualities (e.g., "white"), relations (e.g., "greater"), quantities (e.g., "three yards long"), time (e.g., "last year"), and so on sometimes Aristotle listed ten categories, sometimes only eight.
The categories are intended as a classification of both the kinds of expression that may function as a predicate in a proposition and of the kinds of extralinguistic entity such expressions may signify.
Sovereignty is a predicate of self-government.
We define locality-aware predicates (LAP) that aim at detecting a predicate within a specified area.
In the wffs of a lower predicate calculus, every occurrence of a predicate variable is free.
However, he makes sure to use as a predicate term a substantival adjective in its neuter form, because only in this way can it be made apparent that the form signified by the predicate term is not directly present in the subject, but is indirectly attributed to it, through its individuals (In Cat., cap. de substantia, pp. 288 90).
